Mitch on a Kent Road at Night

Underneath the cold dust of night, skin coated in its sharp spit, he’s bobbing headlight first into the centre of the road, chin jutting out like a speedbump. Soon, the rubber will gravel him again—wrap and warp his skin—and slide him  

slick  

across the tarmac, beetroot nucleus pulposus. That’s the dream, anyway.  To have the soft made speckled.  

 

Humping his body forwards onto that yellow line, he strains out, hands flat. Could be England, could be France, he can’t remember which side the cars come from anyways, so it’s best to fifty-fifty, either side of the divide, crossed bodied chances, again. One more try.  

            The dew collects in elbow hooks, on hems, like beaded weights. He sits here—exposed and stretched—for exactly twenty-two minutes before needing a piss. Peeling up, his hide is speckled once again, close to what it was before. 

            Bubbled pock marks: his flesh turned into dunes, sand caverns, sugar craters.   

 

Mitch looks at his belly as he relieves himself against a tree.  

Moon skin.   

It makes him think of the railyard. 

Oh yes.   

 

Geoff’s hand wrapped giant around that little gold bell. A different note to the others somehow, swinging the clapper against the shaft with a swiftness that meant the sound was recognisably Geoff’s chime. Then later, together, working in the kitchens. Custard powder becomes currency, sweet slathering’s in take-out dishes handed over in the bushes. Before long, flies swarm sickly and bold, hungry moans come from tents like pipes stretching in the cold.  

             Mitch can almost taste the smoke from the fired barrels, scraping off the charred honey and spices from the sides, flaking the smell into the silver bin.  

Geoff’s cheeks, moon skinned and thin.    

 

When he’s shaken himself off, he returns to the road. His piss was too vivid, too close to the paint yellow  

slick.  

But now, with night crossing the lane, he’s missed the opportunity to get water, and anyways, he wouldn’t want to miss it, and here it is: 

A chance on the median line.

  

 Words by Cleo Heywood. Art by Phoebe Birch